Teachers' Openness to Change and Attitudes towards ICT: Comparison of Laptop per Teacher and Laptop per Student Programs.

This study compares three groups of teachers that (1) work in one-to-one laptop classrooms, (2) received a laptop from the state for pedagogical use, and (3) teach without technology. The influence of openness to change and attitudes towards ICT implementation on online communication and information search by 97 Israeli middle school teachers was explored. The results indicate that teachers' openness to changes in professional life and their attitudes towards ICT predict 22.3% of the variance in online communication and 35% of the variance in online information search, both for personal and pedagogical purposes. Teacher openness to change, online communication, and information search were significantly higher among teachers who volunteered to participate in the one-to-one program compared to those who did not volunteer. These results are consistent with the important role of individual differences in explaining the rate of adopting innovations in general and implementing technology by teachers in particular. Compared to other participants, teachers in the one-to-one program showed higher level of awareness to the time invested in preparing digital learning materials. This emphasizes the importance of speeding the development of digital content that is adapted to local context by providers of learning materials. Compared to other participants, teachers who have a laptop reported a higher level of openness to professional changes, to online communication, and information search for both personal and professional purposes. These findings emphasize the importance of providing teachers with personal devices for pedagogical use and online communication.